Community legal centres accuse Federal Government of gagging

Updated
June 30, 2014 13:24:00

Community legal centres say the Federal Government budget cuts are stopping them from lobbying for changes to the law in areas like asylum seeker policy and domestic violence. They're accusing the Government of threatening more funding cuts unless they keep quiet.

ELEANOR HALL: Community lawyers across the country are accusing the Federal Government of gagging them from speaking out on public policy issues.

Community Law Australia says that from tomorrow, funding cuts will prevent them from advocating on issues like domestic violence and asylum seeker policy.

Community Law Australia's spokeswoman Carolyn Bond spoke to Samantha Donovan.

CAROLYN BOND: As of tomorrow, the contract for funding for community legal centres are going to be changed so that those centres won't be able to do any form of law reform or submissions or public speaking out with their federal funding.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Has that actually been a firm directive from the Federal Government though or is it just a matter of funding?

CAROLYN BOND: The Federal Government has made it clear that the funding contracts for community legal centres will specify they can only help individuals with their cases and do community legal education and nothing else.

This is just a counterproductive measure and we're calling on the Government to abandon this change before it even kicks in tomorrow.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: So what do you fear you'll be actually unable to do?

CAROLYN BOND: Well, community legal centres have really had a history of being able to raise the problems that they see in their day to day case work, raise those with law reform commissions or governments or businesses, and actually get reforms and changes that prevent problems happening in the first place.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: What are some good examples of that work in the past?

CAROLYN BOND: Well, in one state, a women's legal centre, the Government accepted their submission about problems experienced by women who experience family violence in relation to birth certificates and registering fathers on birth certificates. The Government accepted those submissions and changed the law.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Are there particular campaigns running at the moment or issues being publicised that you feel maybe curtailed from tomorrow?

CAROLYN BOND: Centres are talking out all the time about a whole range of issues, whether it be asylum seeker policy or whether it be the way governments work with fines or the court system works.

Violence against women for example - there's an issue of women and the way that their names are shown on the electoral role and even where an address isn't shown legal centres are saying that just showing the area where a women lives can actually put that women at risk. And so that's another example of the type of work that centres are doing to raise examples of what they're seeing in their case work.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Has the Attorney-General though expressly forbidden that sort of work?

CAROLYN BOND: The Attorney-General is saying that legal centres can do that work but they can do it in their own time, which given the high demand and in fact the recent funding cuts would probably mean staff doing these sorts of things in the weekend.

In practise, what's going to happen is two things I think. One is legal centres aren't going to be able to get staff to do those, that sort of activity in their own time. Some may get funding elsewhere to do that sort of work, but a lot of centres are telling me that they really feel there's a strong message here that there've already been funding cuts and if they speak out or talk publicly about the sorts of problems that they're seeing that their funding will be at threat.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Carolyn Bond from Community Law Australia. And The World Today has asked the Attorney-General Senator George Brandis for comment but he was unavailable.